Launching John Hiett’s latest book, "The Man in the Arena"

Titchfield author John Hiett has published his fifth book.   It is a work of fiction, a cracking story of adventure and love, spread over four continents at the time of the second world war.

"The Man in the Arena" is told in the first person by the major characters, British, German and Yugoslav, demonstrating the different views of events of the time.

The characters are fictional, but they are s   Readers of a sensitive nature et in real events and they interact with real people, Winston Churchill, Marshall Tito and Robert Maxwell.

Our hero, Charlie Mitchell, falls in love with Helen, daughter of an American diplomat in Nassau.   Their romance is interrupted by the war.   He becomes a British army officer and serves in North Africa before being dropped into Yugoslavia to help Marshall Tito harass the Germans there.   He goes to Trieste to sabotage the German submarine pens but is captured by the Germans and sentenced to death..   He escapes into the chaos of northern Italy towards the end of the war, than makes his way to the glamour and intrigue of Vienna.   There he learns that Helen has married his brother and become pregnant.   He goes off the the rails but eventually makes his way via Germany to England,   But to what?

The story has m ore twists and turns than an Agatha Christie novel.   It has two endings.   Readers of a sensitive nature can tear out the last chapter unread, leaving a hopeful conclusion.   The more heroic can read on.   No cheating.  Don't read the last chapter first!

The book is available at all good booksellers and Amazon, from John (01329 315893) or from the Monk's Rest on Titchfield Square.   It costs £12.   The ISBN number is 978-1-915166-66-1